


Driven Around the Bend

by WolfenM



Series: Trying to Be Nicer [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Homophobia, Introspection, Philosophy, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfenM/pseuds/WolfenM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarette, an old childhood friend of Thomas, intending to learn more about Jimmy, ends up giving Jimmy a harsh talking to about the hypocritical and illogical way she feels homosexuality is treated by Christianity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driven Around the Bend

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers:** All the _Downton Abbey_ episodes up through the Season 3 Christmas Special.
> 
>  **DISCLAIMER:** Jimmy Kent, Thomas Barrow, and Alfred Nugent © Julian Fellowes / ITV / PBS. This is just fanfiction, not an official story for the series, and no profit is being made by the author.
> 
> You don't need to read this story to read the rest of the series. I say this because if you're particularly Christian, some things here may be upsetting -- Clarette is not friendly about her opinions. You also don't need to read the rest of the series to read this. Also, there's not a lot of Thomas in this. Sorry!! ^^;
> 
> This story is my attempt to add some stepping stones to Jimmy's journey from being basically a homophobe to ... well, at least a friend to Thomas. XD Whether or not they end up lovers, I haven't decided yet, but hopefully this will make it more believable if I do go that route.
> 
> I also just needed to get this off my chest, especially with how things are currently going with homophobia in Russia. Being a bi-poly pagan, anytime someone suggests that something in the Bible (or whatever the speaker's faith's moral guidelines are) be the basis for / supports a law that imposes their specific beliefs on those of us that don't share them, and restricts the actions of consenting adults doing something that affects no one else, it ticks me off! XD

August 31st, 1921

"It's Mr Kent, isn't it?"

Jimmy looked up from his stein at the Red Lion to find Mrs Wainright looking him over. "Yes?" he answered warily, wondering what a high-class woman like her was doing in such a place.

"What a stroke of luck! I had my chauffer drop me off so I could do a bit of shopping before heading over to Downton, and seem to have gotten turned around. If you could help me find my car, I'd be happy to give you a lift -- when you're ready, of course, no rush!"

He wasn't all that keen on the idea at first, her being a friend of Thomas, but Jimmy quickly talked himself into it. For one thing, it was his half-day, and he'd have to leave very soon if he were going to walk back, but if she were willing to give him a lift, he could lollygag some. For another, she was the wife of a famous musician: if he got into her good graces, perhaps he might change careers and become a pianist instead of a footman ....

He just as quickly began to regret his decision as she scrutinised him rather unabashedly while he finished his drink and drank another. She even seemed to be eyeing him in her peripheral as he led her to the shop where she'd left her car. The chauffer was having lunch, and was nowhere to be seen -- a fact that made Jimmy worry that he might actually end up back at Downtown late after all.

"Mrs Wainright, is there something else you needed?" he asked, finally breaking under her silent gaze as they waited for her driver to return.

"Yes. I need to understand why Thomas is so infatuated with you," she replied easily. "Frankly, I'm not seeing it at all."

Jimmy was dumbstruck.

"Granted, you're pretty enough, I suppose, but you're also arrogant and vain -- of course, to be fair, so is Thomas. But he seems to think you have a kind heart. Given how cold you are to him, and how snide and condescending I've heard you be to your coworkers when I've visited Thomas downstairs, I fail to understand how he reached that conclusion."

Jimmy finally found his voice. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because I didn't have him _arrested_ when he attacked me in my sleep?"

She squinted at him thoughtfully, nodding slowly. "Thomas believes that to be proof of your kindness, yes. For myself, however, I suspect your inaction regarding the police had less to do with kindness and more to do with fear that someone would suspect you of being of the same inclination if word of what happened to you got out -- that you must have sent some sort of signal encouraging him. Unconsciously, of course," she added with a smirk.

"I wouldn't -- I _didn't_ \-- I'm _not_ that way!"

Her eyebrows raised in seeming surprise and confusion, but he had the sense that she was mocking him. "I wasn't accusing you of being a homosexual!" she pointed out. "I was simply hazarding a guess as to what _you_ might have feared _others_ thought. And for the record, I am in no way excusing what Thomas did to you. He, too, understands now that it was wrong of him to kiss a person without their explicit permission. But I'm also quite sure he would never have _tried_ it if that O'Brien woman hadn't convinced him that you were absolutely interested. You might never guess it, but deep down, the boy's a hopeless romantic," she added with a fond chuckle.

"Why should I care if he is?" he snapped, wondering if he could leave the car without it getting reported back to the Crawleys as a matter of him behaving rudely.

She sighed. "No reason, I suppose, save that I want him to stop mooning over you and move on as much as you probably do. Tell me, did O'Brien goad you into being friendly with Thomas? Perhaps suggest that, if you were in his good graces, your position might rise more easily?"

"Something like that," Jimmy reluctantly confirmed, uncertain whether confessing this would help or hurt him.

She sighed. "We'd suspected as much, some of your coworkers and I."

"Who?" Jimmy demanded, wanting to know who was talking about him like that.

"Never you mind. The point is, we've come to the conclusion that O'Brien used you, manipulated you and Thomas both so that he would feel brave enough to reach out to you, and so that you would react exactly as you did and help her get Thomas fired."

"Well, of course I reacted as I did -- it's a sin!"

"Who says?"

"The Bible!"

"Oh yes, it says quite a lot, doesn't it? According to that book, Abraham was smiled upon for being _willing_ to sacrifice his son, even if he was then told it was not necessary. And some say Jepthah burnt his daughter as an offering to Yahweh, in order to fullfill an oath that he would sacrifice the first thing that came through his door after he won a battle. If a man confessed a willingness to do such a thing today, I think most people would want _him_ locked up even more than they'd want to see a sodomist incarcerated."

Jimmy twisted uncomfortably in his seat. Those stories had always bothered him, truth be told, but his church's priest had explained that Christ had made God more loving, hence the New Testament. But if God was _always_ a being of perfection, how could He change ...?

"But it's funny how people seem to pick and choose what's convenient, isn't it?" Mrs Wainright went on. "I mean, do you not eat shellfish? Not wear fabric of mixed materials? Or perhaps you think it's okay to sell people into slavery, as the Old Testament approves of even if, like with sacrifice, current _laws_ do not? There are plenty of rules in the Bible that few people ascribe to anymore. Times change, and so do customs and beliefs.

"Besides, doesn't Jesus say to love your neighbor, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, and hate the sin but love the sinner? Why any supposedly loving god would create a person a certain way and them make them suffer for it is beyond me. Oh yes, Biblical law says you can sell your daughter to another man against her will, but heaven forbid you enjoy the body your god gave you with a _willing partner_ who happens to be of the same sex! Or perhaps you believe your god did _not_ create homosexuals that way, that it was the intervention of your devil, who 'led them astray' -- although I can't for the life of me see why anyone would willfully choose a lifestyle that would see them imprisoned if they could _choose_ to be heterosexual at all! If Man can be so easily swayed by lust, I'd suggest it's the fault of his maker." Her lip curled in distaste with that last.

Jimmy bristled at her blasphemy, but she stayed him with a hand.

"But let's say biblical law is undeniably right and ignore every other religion and culture because of _course_ yours is the _only_ legitimate one. Shouldn't the punishment for a supposed crime that involves _only_ sinners be between the sinners and their deity? As the romans said, ' _Deorum injuriae diis curae_ ' -- 'Offences to the gods are dealt with _by_ the gods.' Rape would be one thing, but when both parties _are_ consenting during a homosexual act, why exactly do the Laws of _Man_ see a need to intervene in the privacy of a bedroom? It's not like Thomas would ever have a child with a woman, so why must anyone besides your god force him to be alone to the point of threatening imprisonment if he should dare to seek physical expressions of love? Do you not trust your god to look after his own laws? Do you feel comfortable with the idea of lawmakers declaring themselves to be acting on your god's behalf?"

"Why do you keep saying ' _your_  God'?" Jimmy asked, too out of sorts from all of the woman's ongoing blasphemy to manage a counterargument to the rest just yet.

Her manner grew very cold. "Because like more people in this world than you probably realise, _I am not Christian_. Do I have reason to worry that you will now try to have me arrested for blasphemy?"

It would be his word against hers -- he had little doubt he would lose, not necessarily because no one would believe him, but rather because she was a person with influence and he was a nobody.

And really ... while her approach was upsetting, he found he couldn't just dismiss her words. What if men had added things to the Bible that were convenient to their goals, things that _hadn't_ come from God?

But then again, wasn't the Devil known for being compelling?

Well, even so, there was also the fact that Jimmy wouldn't want to have to repeat or explain what had Mrs Wainright had said, much less go into why the subject had come up in the first place, to the police. And he didn't _have_ to take what she said to heart -- ignoring her was likely the safest course of action here, not to mention the simplest ....

"Now," she resumed, softening as if he hadn't interrupted, "besides the claim that it's unnatural -- whoever claims that hasn't experienced much nature, I would think -- what reason would your god have to hate homosexuality? Oh yes -- because sex is only for procreation, and so wasted seed is murder. So every time a woman menstruates rather than conceives, she's committing murder?"

Jimmy winced at her candid language.

"Every time you wake from a wet dream, you've committed murder in your sleep!" she went on, a malicious light in her eyes. "Every time a couple tries to conceive but fails, they've murdered their possible children. Hell, they've even murdered thousands when they _do_ conceive, because only one spermatozoa can fertilise an egg! I wonder what your god must think when a woman must have a hysterectomy so she doesn't die! How dare she go on living instead of breeding! How dare a pair of infertile people marry and have sex when they can't produce children! How dare a woman enjoy anal sex -- yes, women participate in such acts too, did you know? How dare a randy adolescent masturbate -- oh dear, Jimmy, I hope you haven't done that, or you'll go to Hell along with Thomas, won't you? Because it seems to me that all those examples have the same end result as two men having sex: _no children_. Now, seed unused is seed unused, regardless of whether it stays in the canister or is spilled on barren soil! If people can have fun spilling it together, then I say let them spill it, whether they're an infertile couple, or a fertile couple not interested in having children at that time, or two people of the same sex! In the end, where's the difference? I don't see heterosexual people who have sex without conceiving getting sent to prison!"

Mortified at her brazen words, Jimmy wondered if his face was as hot as it felt. An image of Thomas pleasuring himself spring unbidden to Jimmy's mind, then; if his cheeks hadn't been red before, they surely were now! He was that much closer to opening the door and making a break for it!

"Did you love your parents?"

His head already spinning, Jimmy was thrown by this. Thomas told her his parents were gone? "Of course I did!" he snapped.

"Do you believe they loved you?"

"Yes!"

"Have you made mistakes in your life?"

"Of course!"

"But they loved you anyway?"

"Yes!"

"Do you believe they wanted you to be happy?"

"Any parent wants that for their children!"

"Not those of our Thomas. His parents abandoned him for acting on the impulses he was born with, for his very nature. No sane man wants to live a life where he would be imprisoned just for being himself. Your Satan is said to tempt people to stray from your god's wishes. I could see that being the case if the promise were that those who listened to him would get Heaven on Earth, but what could he say to talk someone else into living a life of such misery, where one is hated and could be imprisoned for their choice of _love?_ What kind of parent would prefer to see their child choose a loveless life over being loved -- or living a lie, pretending to love the opposite sex when that's not what's really in their heart? Do you really think your god, whom you call 'Father', would want people like Thomas to be so unhappy just for loving someone? Isn't your god supposed to be all-loving and flawless? If so, then how could he, in his perfection, create beings that are flawed, and then punish them for being so?

"Unless the laws that are claimed to be his were not actually created by him," she suggested, "but by flawed human beings -- people like Mr Barrow the elder, who cast his son out for falling in love with said son's best friend rather than a girl who could give birth to a new generation of Barrows. Never mind how many unwanted children there are in the world already, wandering homeless and suffering. Oh yes, such a crime Thomas committed, the likes of which Hell hath never seen!" She was clearly furious now, her words scathing, to the point where Jimmy wasn't sure she was even talking to him anymore.

He still didn't know what to say. It wasn't like he was particularly religious anyway. It was just ....

There was no reason. It was a "just because" thing -- laws about sin were from God, so you didn't question them. Wasn't that what faith was? Yet ... another thing you learned when you grew up was that some things you accepted without question as a child turned out to not actually be true. And parents often told you self-serving lies, just to get you to stop crying or stop asking questions. But ... if God was a parent, might He do the same? Jimmy couldn't believe that, but why _would_ God punish a man for an act of love? What reason would He have, beyond the men being carnal but not begetting children -- and if that was the _only_ reason, why didn't society then also punish heterosexuals who indulged in sex but couldn't or didn't reproduce?

Maybe the Bible wasn't infallible, then? How did they _know_ that _all_ , much less _any_ , of the _men_ who wrote the Bible really knew God's will? That every word was His? What if some of the men added things just to get people to accept what they said and stop questioning, like a parent did with a child? The Church of England had already questioned the legitimacy of the Popes -- why shouldn't the Bible be questioned as well?

As Jimmy's thoughts silently turned, Mrs Wainright visibly deflated. "But of course I am in the minority. A lifetime with my brother, and a decade and a half with Thomas -- that experience apparently counts for naught on the subject of the goodness of men who happen to be homosexual, and the beauty of their love." She sighed. "At any rate, back to the matter at hand. If you're really not interested in Thomas--"

"I'm _not!_ " Jimmy hissed -- whether he agreed with her at all or not, the fact remained that he had no intention of going to prison! And the best way of staying out was being firm about his disinterest in Thomas and in men in general!

"--then it would be in your best interest to help him get over you. Obviously being a total arse to him isn't working, so you might try being his friend."

"How would _that_ help?" he asked, suspicious. What if she was actually trying to help Thomas land him? "Wouldn't that just encourage him?"

"No, because right now, he's _afraid_ to seek out someone else. He knows you won't have him arrested now, so he can just safely pine over you from afar. That, and I think he can't stop obsessing over making himself worthy in your eyes, to atone for what he did to you. But be his friend and forgive him, and maybe he'll finally relax some."

"Or become even more obsessed with me!" Jimmy protested.

She pursed her lips. "I don't think so -- you've made it pretty clear that such will never be an option. But if you couldn't have love from someone you care about, wouldn't you settle for 'like'? I mean, it's certainly better than getting 'hate'! So make it clear that you will give him what you _can_ \-- and that what you can give is only friendship -- and he will be content, I think. He cares about you too much to want to do anything to make you unhappy."

"He's _already_ making me unhappy by making me uncomfortable! Mooning over me all the time, bending over backwards to be nice!"

She stared at him like he'd grown another head. "Oh yes, I see -- how terrible that he should be nice to you and care about you!" she said dryly. "I suppose he must be foisting sonnets on you day and night and declaring his love for you to the entire house at every mealtime! Or maybe he's just being civil and polite, seeing as you both still have to work together? Are you honestly worried that him handing you a piece of toast will make everyone assume that you're homosexual yourself?"

Well, when she put it that way, he supposed not. He felt like a bit of a heel now, really -- and that made him feel all the angrier, at Mrs Wainright and at Thomas for making him feel that way.

And, of course, at himself.

His thoughts were spinning like the wheels of the car when they finally drove off, the strange woman blessedly silent the whole way back to Downton.

 

~ * * * ~  
September 1921

While Jimmy's thoughts did slow now and then, they didn't seem to ever stop spinning _completely_ regarding the subject, not once -- until the day Thomas save him from a mugging.

Surreptitious conversations with other staff in the days after the lecture from Mrs Wainright and leading up to the mugging had revealed that Thomas had been much crueler in the days before Jimmy -- and that Thomas had not ever been consistently kind to anyone else the way he was with Jimmy, not even close. And yet, before the mugging, this information had just served to make Jimmy more resentful, this revelation that others had _noticed_ how different Thomas was towards him. It only served to stoke his fear that others might decide that he _must_ have shown some inclination of being _that way_ to pique the other man's interest in the first place. It upset him to think he might be perceived that way -- even as it upset him how Mrs Wainright had caused him to call so much that he'd grown up believing into question about the subject. (And other things, too -- was anything true?) Because of this man, his whole life was turned inside out!

But _now, after_ the mugging .... For the first time, as Jimmy studied the man, trying to understand why the under-butler would be driven to save him despite how ill Jimmy had treated him, Jimmy finally _saw_ Thomas. Saw the man's feelings as love rather than simply lust, as something precious rather than disgusting, even if Jimmy didn't feel the same way towards Thomas. Jimmy was safe and alive because of this man's love. Thomas was hurt physically because of what he'd been willing to do for love -- and, Jimmy could hear in the man's voice, had been hurting spiritually for a long time, from loneliness. The love Thomas showed Jimmy, despite the lack of reciprocation, had been a blessing that day, not a curse, saving Jimmy from his own foolishness. Christ would surely have been proud of Thomas.

Granted, Jimmy knew Thomas was no saint, however Mrs Wainright might see him. But he also knew now that Thomas had started acting selflessly in ways he had not previously been prone to _because of Jimmy_. The man acted out of love rather than hate or bitterness. Didn't that speak well of Jimmy himself, that he could inspire such selflessness and growth of character? Wasn't love really the most important thing? While the kiss was wrong, hadn't it taken a vast deal of courage for Thomas to act on those feelings, especially during the mugging, despite what harm might come to him in either case? Even if Jimmy had reciprocated, prison was always a worry ....

Jimmy still wasn't keen on the methods by which men of that inclination expressed love physically, but he was no longer so sure it was an actual _sin_ rather than just a matter of differing tastes. When he told Thomas that he couldn't give the man what he wanted, just as Mrs Wainright had suggested he do, the heartfelt reply from Thomas that he hoped they could be friends, in keeping with what Mrs Wainright predicted, shattered any last qualm Jimmy had. Under the circumstances, how could he be any less than a friend to the man who had saved him at the risk of his own life? More than that ... Jimmy found that the thing that had most deterred him -- the kiss and the fear of how others might interpret it -- no longer seemed to matter. Hell, even Alfred, who had been more offended than Jimmy himself by The Incident, had become friendly with Thomas. What, really, had Jimmy been afraid of?

Letting go of his grudge and accepting the overture of friendship, Jimmy suddenly felt lighter of heart, relieved to be free of the burden.

~FINIS~

**Author's Note:**

> Besides life in general being busy, this chapter is why it's taken me so long to update this story. The next chapter is actually pretty close to done -- I just couldn't seem to work on it without first addressing Jimmy's change of heart and exploring how he got from point A to point B!
> 
> ###########  
> If you've enjoyed my writing, I invite you to explore my original fantasy storyverse, [Gaiankind](http://gaiankind.com)! You can even find Gaiankind stories for free [here](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Gaiankind) on AO3!


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